Oh yes. There's some fun (for want of a better word) in investigating the results of BGCOL. I've seen collisions with anything from the distraction of drinking the coffee, of it being spilled or by the driver dipping an elbow into it with it resting in the whereabouts of the handbrake.

To be fair, most people don't let the car's gearbox layout to interfere with the "important" tasks that they somehow have to do while driving. To them, it would still be all the same if it were a manual...

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:I was in a presentation last week where the (lady) presenter put up a picture of a gear lever in the context of "outdated technology". She was from the USA, and most of the audience were European. A number commented that perhaps the technology wasn't as obsolete as she thought. Her answer, paraphrased, went:

I used to drive a manual, but when I had a child, my priorities changed. I needed a hand to hold my Starbucks coffee, and now I had all these extra tasks to undertake, looking after my child, changing the CD etc. - she (the child) has so many little jobs for me to do. I don't have time to shift manually any more...

I decided not to prolong the discussion, but I wasn't alone in raising a curious eyebrow.

I do occasionally drink coffee or water or other beverages (non-alcoholic ) whilst driving, but I allow it to rest in the cup holder whilst I focus on the slightly more important task of not crashing the car. Considering the fact the 'cup holder' is actually an US invention (I believe it was Ford that brought the cup holder to the European market), I'm surprised she would be lacking a cup holder in her vehicle of choice in the USA.

Same goes for changing the CD. Most cars will come fitted with a CD changer which does the job of changing CDs for you, or even better, live radio! You can tune into a radio channel which broadcasts music of your liking, then you never need to change CDs.

Doing 'jobs for the child' is rather alarming. If you need to look after your child whilst driving, the safest bet would be to pull up somewhere. If it's not an emergency, I'm sure you could continue to the next safe place to pull over. If it is an emergency, you can use the hard shoulder on motorways or simply pull up somewhere sensible and flick on your hazard lights.

There are a lot of clients where you realise that they ARE going to do something other than driving. If you can talk them into waiting for red lights, or even pull over just to complete whatever it is they need done, you make all the difference.

Granted, one also needs to be focused when pulled over, but overall I think it's a good compromise that could suit all drivers.

Oh, and some of the issue with cup holders is what people put in them. Often I see soft mallable cups that under a sudden jerk would collapse and spill their contents on the drivers. Sometimes it's simply an open cup (even one made of glass) or a big bottle rattling about.

The one that sticks in my mind, was the woman in the Republic of Ireland a few years ago, who was following me on our way back home from County Clare. She had a story book held on the steering wheel, and was in the process of reading her children a story.

Astraist wrote:Oh, and some of the issue with cup holders is what people put in them. Often I see soft mallable cups that under a sudden jerk would collapse and spill their contents on the drivers. Sometimes it's simply an open cup (even one made of glass) or a big bottle rattling about.

That's a good point.

That's why I always make a point of only ever allowing bottles with lids on, or water tight thermos mugs for homemade hot drinks, or those take away cups with a lid whenever I'm driving.

It's because I don't want to suddenly be distracted by a rouge passenger spilling water all over me or worse, scalding coffee all over me!

I was not in any way trying to embellish, or explain, or excuse my interlocutor's habits. I was just reporting what she said. She needed to hold the coffee, she needed to change CDs (maybe from one chilren's story to another), she needed to do the "little jobs". We didn't go into details. That was her life - those things were imperatives. This is a highly intelligent lady, with multiple degrees, well travelled in Europe, etc. etc. etc. ... that's the way people see driving, nowadays.

Mr Cholmondeley-Warner wrote:I was not in any way trying to embellish, or explain, or excuse my interlocutor's habits. I was just reporting what she said. She needed to hold the coffee, she needed to change CDs (maybe from one chilren's story to another), she needed to do the "little jobs". We didn't go into details. That was her life - those things were imperatives. This is a highly intelligent lady, with multiple degrees, well travelled in Europe, etc. etc. etc. ... that's the way people see driving, nowadays.

It does make me feel saddened that so many people don't deem driving to be an enjoyable task, and now just view it as yet another obstacle they've got to overcome.

But having looked at my 'peers' at 6th form, it really doesn't surprise me how little regard people give to the whole act of driving. I have friends in their 20's who have never attempted to learn how to drive because they "just don't need to".